Anyone want to call me a dudebro or paranoid freak again for vocally stating that letting police departments have drones (that they would inevitably arm) is a really fucking bad idea?
Shitty Cops
Joe Scarborough- Still an Asshole
Wesley Lowery is quickly becoming my favorite reporter. Here he is responding to Joe Scarborouogh, who earlier chided Lowery for not being more compliant with the cops as they illegally detained him for sitting in a McDonalds:
I would invite Joe Scarborough to come down to Ferguson and get out of 30 Rock where he’s sitting sipping his Starbucks, smugly. I would invite him to come down and talk to the residents of Ferguson where I’ve been since Monday afternoon having tear gas and rubber bullets shot at me, having mothers and daughters crying, a 19-year-old boy crying — he had to run and pull his 21-year-old sister out from a cloud of tear gas, thinking she was going to die. I invite Joe Scarborough down here to do some reporting on the ground. Then maybe we can have an educated conversation about what’s happening here.
[…] Let me be clear about this: I have little patience for talking heads. This is too important. This is a community, a community in the United States of America, where are things on fire. This community is on edge. There’s so much happening here, and instead of putting more reporters on the ground we have people like Joe Scarborough running their mouth and have no idea what they’re talking about.
That will leave a mark.
Animals
John might have a mixed record for prognosticating, but nobody can deny his foresight in arguing against equipping small town police forces like Ferguson with military hardware back in the early 2000’s. Kids want to play with their new toys. Give people like Ferguson chief Thomas Jackson, apparently a big fan of Sean Hannity, the tools to beat a crowd into submission and pretty soon you will find that crisis management best practices manual holding up the short leg of a table.
"We're dealing with 4,000 animals in there, & you want to give me attitude?" The deputy yelled, mad I was taking a pic #Ferguson #MikeBrown
— Eli Rosenberg (@EliKMBC) August 14, 2014
No reason to talk with ‘animals’ when you can roll up with armor and smother their town in tear gas.
STL County Police Chief Belmar: "We've done everything we can to demonstrate a remarkable amount of restraint." pic.twitter.com/97AcVPPZGK
— Matt Pearce (@mattdpearce) August 14, 2014
Lord have mercy, imagine what a lack of restraint would look like. If St. Louis cops are that eager to gun down unarmed protesters then you have a pretty watertight argument for issuing these assholes the London standard of a billyclub and a can of mace.
I suppose we can thank providence that St. Louis has not gotten its hands on newer crowd control toys like the deafening Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) or the microwave pain ray. It makes my skin crawl to think what undisciplined, racist wingnuts like Chief Thomas Jackson would do with those.
***Update***
I mean really, Jackson is the guy at the center of the storm. How he acts in public will shape how people judge the behavior of his force. Imagine for a second that I wanted to write a tboggesque parody of a bigoted half-assed excuse for a small town Chief handling an inexcusable but isolated incident about as badly as a person can. I’d start with stonewalling, a media blackout and heavy-handed crowd control to make things worse. Then, keeping in mind that this is an improbable fantasy story where you exaggerate for effect, I would have him give his first public interview to Hannity. And yet here we are.
Try to imagine an outlet that would say worse things about this guy’s integrity and leadership. Breitbart? The list is pretty short.
Tehran and Ferguson
Here are some Al-Jazeera journalists being tear gassed in Ferguson last night. If they don’t count, how about the Wesley Lowery from the Washington Post, who was arrested last night, making Ferguson and Tehran the two places where Post reporters have been arrested this year.
Late Night Open Thread: Second Verse, Same As the First…
6 hours ago Ryan Reilly introduced himself to me in a McDonalds. Then we ended up in jail. Wonder what he's got planned for our second date
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014
Phenomenal reporting by @WesleyLowery from Ferguson – if you're not following him or reading his timeline, you should.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) August 14, 2014
The Washington Post gets a lot of grief, much of it well-deserved, but they have been stepping up on the ongoing Ferguson disaster.
FERGUSON, Mo. — When an unarmed black teenager and a police officer crossed paths here last weekend with fatal results, the incident cast a blinding spotlight on a small police department struggling for authority and relevance in a changing community…
But while the racial disparity between the public here and its protectors has come to define the violent aftermath of Brown’s death, the department’s problems stretch back years and include questions about its officers’ training and racial sensitivity.
The office of Missouri’s attorney general concluded in an annual report last year that Ferguson police were twice as likely to arrest African Americans during traffic stops as they were whites.
And late last year, the state chapter of the NAACP filed a federal complaint against the St. Louis County police department, whose officers are now assisting Ferguson’s force since the shooting, over racial disparities in traffic stops, arrests and other actions…
(h/t commentor Tissue-Thin Pseudonym/JMN)
Late Night Open Thread: Second Verse, Same As the First…Post + Comments (38)
Chicago, Illinois, 1968 Ferguson, Misery, 2014
.@jelani9 @SusanGDailyKos It must be something about the way you're dressed….
— billmon (@billmon1) August 13, 2014
In addition to civil rights memories, #Ferguson also has a Chicago 1968 vibe to it: Cops just itching to crack skulls of "liberal media."
— billmon (@billmon1) August 14, 2014
In Chicago in '68 they took their badges off. They know how to do things in Chicago.
— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) August 14, 2014
.
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
I had just finished the eighth grade when the 1968 DNC happened. Not sure if any of the other front-pagers, apart from Kay, had even been born…
<del>Chicago, Illinois, 1968</del> Ferguson, Misery, 2014Post + Comments (247)
Livestream of Ferguson Protests
Here:
It’s kind of surreal, like a Coen Brothers meets Terry Gilliam kind of way- church music cranking, the crowd peacefully clapping and singing along, all while snipers or armored vehicles train weapons on the crowd. The stark contrast between the white officers and predominantly black crowd is telling.
There are rumors that reporters Ryan J. Reilly and Wesley Lowery have been detained by the Police.
*** Update ***
Police come into McD where me and @ryanjreilly working. Try to kick everyone out.
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 13, 2014
Was arrested
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014
Also Ryan Reilly of Huff Po. Assaulted and arrested
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014
Officers decided we weren't leaving McDonalds quickly enough, shouldn't have been taping them.
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 14, 2014
I guess if being black and unarmed warrants the death penalty, eating too slowly at McDonalds warrants a beating and arrest.
*** Update ***
Last update deleted. May not be verified and I don’t want to inflame shit.
*** Update ***
Remember a week or so ago when I said it looks like black people are getting the summer off. Anyone want to talk about something else less embarrassing? Maybe my two votes for Bush or my peak wingnut theory?